Another Irish Bishop Resigning in Wake of Abuse Report

Posted on Dec 23, 2009

Flickr / jmenard48

An interior look at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, one of many Catholic houses of worship in Dublin.

A report about pervasive and long-standing child abuse by Irish Catholic priests in Dublin has led to the resignation of two bishops from the local archdiocese. On Wednesday, Bishop Jim Moriarty followed in the footsteps of his colleague, Bishop Donal Murray, in announcing that he would soon travel to Rome to formally step down from his post. —KA

AP via Google News:

[Bishop Jim] Moriarty said he accepted the investigators’ finding that he failed to react properly when told about abuse cases, particularly of one priest convicted of molesting girls in 1997. But he insisted that his own inaction reflected his colleagues’ poor communication and secrecy.

“It does not serve the truth to overstate my responsibility and authority within the archdiocese. Nor does it serve the truth to overlook the fact that the system of management and communications was seriously flawed,” Moriarty said in a prepared statement.

“However, with the benefit of hindsight, I accept that, from the time I became an auxiliary bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture.”

It’s interesting to see the alacrity with which archbishop Martin of Dublin (appointed by the pope to Make This Mess Go Away) has abandoned the bishops criticised in the Murphy report.

A fundamental shift has occurred in Ireland’s relationship with Catholicism. For the first time since the 19th century the church’s domination of health and education is being seriously questioned, and even the Government is beginning to question it (now that they’ve seen how the wind of public opinion is blowing!).

The problem is that politics in Ireland is all about doing the minimum possible to rock the boat: principles are fine, so long as you don’t have to implement them. And we all know what we’re against, but we’re still not sure what we want instead.